It is not uncommon for the vast majority of people to be confused about pension annuities. You can hardly blame them given the complexities involved. Annuities are generally something that you will only ever buy once. This means that people don’t tend to bother to find out what they are all about until it comes to the point when they have to buy one. Moreover not only do people have confusion over what annuities are, they don’t realise that to get the best deal, you have to shop around between providers.
Given this fact, it is essential that you get some proper advice over what to do. Now, you could consult an independent financial adviser, which is certainly the place that most people would want to start. However, they do charge for this advice, sometimes at over £100 per hour and for those with smaller pension pots this may not seem like a logical thing to spend money on. However if they are a member of the registered annuity and pension bureau then you are protected under consumer law if they give you advice that turns out to be false or misleading.
But in our opinion, the best place to start is on the internet, where there is lots of information on sites like this one. Do a search on Google for “pension annuity” and you will find heaps of useful information. Annuity websites generally fall into four categories; that is providers such as LV=, Zurich, Standard Life, Prudential, AXA, Canada Life, MGM Advantage, Aviva, Aegon and Friends Provident. Then there are annuity advisers/brokers such as Annuitysupermarket.com and Just Retirement. There are also several information/news sites such as rightannuity.co.uk and annuity-rates.org. Finally there is lots of information on the FSA website itself. So, there is plenty of information for you to get your teeth into before you have to cough up any money for professional advice. Please note, this research does NOT constitute a replacement for proper independant financial advice, it merely acts as a good starting point.
If you want to know about the main annuities on offer in the UK, then check out our pension options page.
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